Day Pitney’s Healthcare Law Blog provides regular updates on issues affecting all aspects of the healthcare industry. In this era of ever-increasing regulation, we monitor healthcare news and developments from all federal and state agencies, as well as significant court decisions and public policy initiatives. We cut through the jargon and give our clients and other readers what they need to know in a concise, no-nonsense style to save them time while helping them stay informed.

Eric Fader was quoted in a January 4 article, "Outlook 2017: ACA Repeal Dominates Health Policy Predictions," in Bloomberg BNA's Health Insurance Report, Health IT Law & Industry Report, and other publications. In the article, Eric discussed how HIPAA enforcement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is expected to expand into new areas in 2017.

"The higher level of enforcement activity that we saw in 2016 should continue, and it's also likely the Phase 2 HIPAA audits will spawn new areas of enforcement activity," Eric told Bloomberg BNA. Eric said that while Rep. Tom Price, the HHS secretary-nominee, is viewed as a friend to physicians, he doesn't think that will extend to protecting HIPAA violators from sanctions.

"Although federal funding for certain health-care initiatives could be cut if the administration needs to allocate funds to pay for other priorities," Eric added, "ramping up the number of OCR HIPAA enforcement actions to generate more multimillion dollar settlements might be seen as an easy way to bring money into the system."